Here’s a small update on the lack of any word from federal law enforcement or hospital officials on the what and how of the injury Donald Trump suffered last Saturday in western Pennsylvania when a 20-year-old gunman tried to shoot him. As I’ve noted, Pennsylvania State Police initially told reporters on the scene that Trump had been struck by shards of glass. Then Trump himself said he’d been hit with a bullet and that was the end of the matter. There’s small detail from a local news report from last Sunday that suggests it as at least plausible that the initial report was correct, that Trump was struck by some flying debris.
A report from local TV station WPXI at 4:50 PM Sunday said this (emphasis added) …
11 Investigates has learned that four Pittsburgh police officers assigned to the former president’s motorcade yesterday suffered minor injuries during the shooting.
The four motorcycle officers were part of Donald Trump’s escort to and from the rally in Butler.
Sources tell Chief Investigator Rick Earle the officers were just feet away from Trump when shots rang out. The four officers suffered minor injuries from flying debris caused by the bullets.
Sources say the officers were hit with either plastic or metal fragments when the bullets struck objects nearby.
This report certainly doesn’t prove Trump was also hit by flying debris. Trump was the target so the odds of him being struck by a bullet seem, by definition, higher. But it does appear to show pretty conclusively that the gunshots created a spray of flying debris in Trump’s immediate vicinity capable of causing minor injuries. That’s precisely what those initial reports from state law enforcement said happened to Trump, though we still don’t know why. This simply underscores the fact that both possible sources of the injury are very plausible and that we really need law enforcement and/or examining doctors to tell the public what they think happened. Or, perhaps, they don’t know precisely what happened.
An additional note. I’ve heard from different people pointing to photographs or studies claiming the injury we see in press photos isn’t consistent with a grazing firearm injury. To me all of this makes a different point: I have zero expertise in ballistics or firearms injuries. And I’m not going to try to become an expert on the fly based on things I read online. I have no reason to believe Trump wasn’t grazed by a bullet beyond the fact that there were initial and possibly erroneous reports to the contrary and we’ve never had any word from investigating authorities at all. This is precisely why it’s necessary that we get that. It really couldn’t be simpler. It’s the most normal and standard thing in the world. And it’s a huge failure of the nation’s leading press organizations that they’ve been afraid to press the point because they’ve feared blowback from the Trump campaign.
